Major Mark Bieger found this little girl after the car bomb that attacked our guys while kids were crowding around. The soldiers here have been angry and sad for two days. They are angry because the terrorists could just as easily have waited a block or two and attacked the patrol away from the kids. Instead, the suicide bomber drove his car and hit the Stryker when about twenty children were jumping up and down and waving at the soldiers. Major Bieger, I had seen him help rescue some of our guys a week earlier during another big attack, took some of our soldiers and rushed this little girl to our hospital. He wanted her to have American surgeons and not to go to the Iraqi hospital. She didn't make it. I snapped this picture when Major Bieger ran to take her away. He kept stopping to talk with her and hug her.

The soldiers went back to that neighborhood the next day to ask what they could do. The people were very warming and welcomed us into their homes, and many kids were actually running up to say hello and to ask soldiers to shake hands.

Eventually, some insurgents must have realized we were back and started shooting at us. The American soldiers and Iraqi police started engaging the enemy and there was a running gun battle. I saw at least one IP who was shot, but he looked okay and actually smiled at me despite the big bullet hole in his leg. I smiled back.

One thing seems certain; the people in that neighborhood share our feelings about the terrorists. We are going to go back there, and if any terrorists come out, the soldiers hope to find them. Everybody is still very angry that the insurgents attacked us when the kids were around. Their day will come.

LH's comments:That these "people" intentionally decimate little children is almost unbelievable. Terrorists ("insurgents") are just plain evil and when people defend their actions, knowing full well what they do and why they do it, it makes my stomach churn.

BY ANDREW METZSTAFF WRITER; Craig Gordon of the Washington Bureau contributed to this story.

May 5, 2005

On a day of carnage, it was an intimate image: a soldier clutching a child in his arms.

When Amy Bieger, mother of three boys, wife of an infantryman in Iraq, saw the picture on the Internet on Tuesday night, she stared at the little feet dangling in the nook of the man's arm, at the soldier's helmeted head pressed to the child's face. She stared and tears welled up.

"I said 'Oh my God, it is one of our soldiers,'" Bieger, 34, said yesterday from her home outside the Fort Lewis, Wash., Army post. "Then I stared at the [name] patch. I made out the rank and then the last four letters of the name and I knew it was my husband."

Amid an ongoing surge in violence in Iraq, Maj. Mark Bieger, the operations officer for the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, emerged Monday from the scene of double bombings in Mosul with a fatally wounded girl in his arms.

Freelance photographer Michael Yon caught the 35-year-old West Point graduate cradling the child, and in short order the anonymous tableau of compassion and violence was touching people around the country.

"In some ways, his name or rank doesn't matter - he is first and foremost an American soldier," said Meredith Weipert, a North Carolina elementary school teacher whose stepbrother is on the same Stryker combat team. "I hope this image is seared into the heart of the American people."

U.S. military officials declined to provide information about the incident, and Amy Bieger said her husband offered her few details. But, she said, it was just like him to be in the thick of things and drawn to children. When he was deployed last year, the local paper ran a picture of his youngest son, Owen, then 3, running through a field, American flag in hand.

Bieger's dad, Dan, from Hereford, Ariz., said, he wasn't surprised either but was worried about the impact on his son. "When I saw it, it kind of ripped us up," he said. "You can't go through that stuff without changing."

Amy Bieger said that as she peered at the photo Tuesday she recognized her husband's "body language and the way his arms were wrapped around her."

"He has definitely told me stories when he sees older kids playing over there, they just remind him of his boys back here," she said. "He has a huge soft heart for an infantryman."

rhb

"BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian doctors sent an Iraqi girl home on Thursday after treating her for leg wounds caused by a bomb during the U.S. invasion -- and sent the 51,570 euro ($66,650) bill to the U.S. embassy.

"We haven't heard from them yet," said Bert De Belder, coordinator of the humanitarian agency Medical Aid for Third World which brought the girl to Belgium.

"I'm curious to know their reaction," he told Reuters. "We're giving them 10 days to respond ... I don't think they will pay it...

De Belder said he sent the bill to the U.S. embassy because international law dictated that an occupying force was responsible for the well-being of the country's people. U.S. embassy officials were not immediately available for comment. ($1=.7737 Euro) "

I don't think they'll pay either.

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Christian Forums and Message Board

Interesting. When American doctors attached bionic hands to 7 Iraqis, at $50,000 each, they did it free. I guess the Belgians prefer to issue a press release to ensure they get their money, even if they have to use a little girl to do it.

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rhb

Interesting. When American doctors attached bionic hands to 7 Iraqis, at $50,000 each, they did it free. I guess the Belgians prefer to issue a press release to ensure they get their money, even if they have to use a little girl to do it.

Nailed you on your own link:

In short, "not free..."

Quote

Thanks to remarkable cooperation and generosity of U.S. government agencies, private industry, doctors, hospitals, and individual Americans, seven of the nine were brought to the United States and fitted free of charge with state-of-the art prosthetic hands.

What's more, it would seem that the U.S. would prefer to amputate instead of saving the limb. Remember in the article I linked to...

Quote

Doctors brought Kassim to Belgium last year to try to save her left ankle, seriously injured by a cluster bomb that also killed her brother in Baghdad in 2003.

That's right: the Belgian doctors SAVED the ankle. So no need for prosthetics.

And as for "wanting to get paid," I have to remind folks like you all the time: READ THE ARTICLE, and you would have found that:

Quote

"'We haven't heard from them yet,' said Bert De Belder, coordinator of the humanitarian agency Medical Aid for Third World which brought the girl to Belgium.

'I'm curious to know their reaction,' he told Reuters. 'We're giving them 10 days to respond ... I don't think they will pay it.'"

and

Quote

De Belder said he sent the bill to the U.S. embassy because international law dictated that an occupying force was responsible for the well-being of the country's people. U.S. embassy officials were not immediately available for comment.

That's right, they aren't expecting anything from anyone, except the thanks of a young lady and her family and a hope for a more normal life than they have any right to expect anytime soon.

In fact, there is an acute shortage of supplied for making prosthetic limbs in Iraq now. I guess our government's generosity only went so far.[/color]

As I stated the American doctors performed their services freely. This was not to indicate that there was no cost involved, but, that the American doctors did the work free of charge. Unlike the Belgian doctors which are requesting payment.

Quote

That's right: the Belgian doctors SAVED the ankle. So no need for prosthetics.

"The men were arrested in 1994, then sent to the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison, where after a 30-minute trial and a year's imprisonment they were sentenced to have their right hands amputated. Hassan Al Gearawy, today a Dutch citizen, asked the surgeons to take his left hand, crippled by an injury received during the Iran-Iraq war, and spare his right. His plea was ignored. As a last act with his right hand prior to the amputation, Nazaar Joudi wrote to his wife, "Hopefully Allah will replace my hand with an even better one." When he received the prosthetic hand, his first act was to write another letter to his wife.

Not trusting that doctors would carry out his grisly orders, Saddam directed prison officials to videotape the entire procedure and deliver the nine severed hands to him. Besides amputating the hands, surgeons at Abu Ghraib methodically tattooed an X on each man's forehand to mark him as a criminal."

Quote

That's right, they aren't expecting anything from anyone, except the thanks of a young lady and her family and a hope for a more normal life than they have any right to expect anytime soon.

If they did not want to be reimbursed for their medical services then why send a bill?[/color]

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rhb

As I stated the American doctors performed their services freely. This was not to indicate that there was no cost involved, but, that the American doctors did the work free of charge. Unlike the Belgian doctors which are requesting payment.

No, bucko, your article said that the limbs were provided free of charge. This doesn't mean gratis to the doctors. It does mean that the recipients were not charged. As in:

Quote

Thanks to remarkable cooperation and generosity of U.S. government agencies, private industry, doctors, hospitals, and individual Americans, seven of the nine were brought to the United States and fitted free of charge with state-of-the art prosthetic hands.

Neither was the 15-year-old assisted by the Belgians. And it is not certain that the Belgian doctors were reimbursed for their services. It is one thing to request payment; quite another to actually expect to receive it. If the Bush administration had any guts, they would reimburse those doctors like they subsidized the ones you happen to like.

Fact is, and remains, that the Bush Administration didn't do right by the young lady, and the Belgians did good.

Man, if you want to be meanspirited about the good others do to deal with the mess that Bush has created in Iraq, no one is going to stop you. But when you go looking for reasons to diss those good deeds that make the President and his administration looks like the incompetents they are, all I say is that you can keep that grape kool-aid propaganda for yourself.

"After seeing the video of the amputations, Agris and fellow surgeon Fred Kestler agreed to operate free of charge. In short order, Paul Bremer, Coalition Provisional Authority administrator in Baghdad, the Defense Department, and the Department of Homeland Security cleared the way for the men to come to the United States. Houston-based Continental Airlines flew the men from Germany to Texas. Several donors provided hotel rooms, and private citizens offered to house the men, cook for them and wash their clothes. Houston Methodist Hospital and the Texas Institute for Rehabilitation and Research provided free care. Otto Bock Health Care donated its top-of-the-line prosthetic hands, which were fitted by Dynamic Orthotics and Prosthetics in Houston."

Man, if you want to be meanspirited about the good others do to deal with the mess that Bush has created in Iraq, no one is going to stop you. But when you go looking for reasons to diss those good deeds that make the President and his administration looks like the incompetents they are, all I say is that you can keep that grape kool-aid propaganda for yourself.

All I pointed out is that the Belgian doctors saught payment for their services by sending a bill. If they did not want payment then why send a bill?

As far as being meanspirited. I started this thread with a touching story about a soldier attempting to help a young child that was fatally wounded in a terrorist attack. For some reason that prompts you to post a story about some Belgian doctors that are miffed because they think their bill for treating an Iraqi casualty will be ignored. Why is it that when I post something good about an American soldier you feel the need to post something attacking the American government?[/color]

rhb

For some reason that prompts you to post a story about some Belgian doctors that are miffed because they think their bill for treating an Iraqi casualty will be ignored. Why is it that when I post something good about an American soldier you feel the need to post something attacking the American government?

Because you seem determined to ignore the point that the young lady shouldn't have been injured the first place, and that it remains the obligation of the occupying power under the Geneva Conventions to protect non-combatants.

Not only did the US fail to protect her, they failed to take care of her. And a year-old store about prosthetics fails to acknowledge the quagmire the US has not only created, but refuses to take responsibility for. The billing by the Belgian doctors is reminder of a duty that the US, in the case of this young lady, refused to acknowledge.

Have their been any more "9-11" style or USS Cole style terrorist attacks here in the U.S. since Bush started, ah, um, messing things up so badly?

Nope.

And if we were a real true occupying force in Iraq, instead of liberators trying to help strengthen the forces that belong there so we can get the heck out, then we'd have another few 100 thousand of our troops there really occupying the place, and we'd have already combed many of those Syrian and other "insurgents" out of there.